The Commons of Soil

Having lived anachronistically by the fossilised product of ancient soils, we have simultaneously lost the skills and virtues, which had historically been cultured from living soils.

While coal and oil describe commodities about which we have no need to be specific, soil is always specific in quality, topography and culture.

It is specific to this gardener at a turn of his spade, or to that farmer's footsteps across her particular field. It stimulates the personal through sensuality, curiosity and ingenuity, and also by pleasure in its fruits and suffering for their scarcity. Soil cannot be owned. It is the source (since it is our provider) for commons of rights and responsibilities. After all, rights and responsibilities have evolved within the cultures of settlement.

We can think of soil as the mother of commons. And we can think of commons as the heart of social systems.

In this short book Patrick Noble searches for some lost commons, which could liberate us into the more convivial societies envisioned by his literary companion, Ivan Ilich.

The sudden austerity facing developed societies may be a catalyst for the ingenuity and dexterity that bring happiness and self-worth. Patrick Noble farms Bryn Cocyn Organic Farm in North Wales. The cover photograph is of the farm: meats, cereals, vegetables and fruit destined for local farmers' markets.

Family labour for a self-reliant, but convivial future!